Bill Jones
|latest = "The Long Shadow, Part 13" }} Bill Jones is a used car salesman and former criminal who murdered Jay and Steven Watson. History While in high school, Bill meets Gene Hecht who is a senior while Bill is a junior. In his youth, Bill commits some crimes that get him a juvenile record. Alongside Gene, Bill eventually embarks upon a series of ATM robberies together. On February 15, 1986, Bill and Gene rob an ATM where Jay and Steven Watson are after going to a King's hockey game, likely mistiming the robbery a little as the men had not yet drawn any money. After Steven reveals that he doesn't have a bank card, Bill shoots him after not believing Steven's claim and then Jay after forcing him to draw the around sixty dollars in his account. Taking the money and Jay's Swiss Army watch, Bill and Gene flee, leaving Jay and Steven dead. After the robbery and murders, Bill leaves the criminal life for a normal life. Bill eventually gets a job at a used car dealership named Bev & Ed's Autos, gets married and has two children. Over the next thirty years, Bill is able to build a life while the murders remain unsolved and Gene goes to prison on a life sentence in around 1988. In 2016, Reserve Officer Buzz Watson, Jay's son, reopens the investigation into the murders of his father and uncle. After managing to identify Gene and breaking his alibi, Buzz forces Gene to identify his partner as Bill Jones, or Billy as Gene calls him. However, Gene claims not to know anything about Bill, worrying Buzz with the implications of why Gene would want to protect Bill. By digging through the LAPD's Library of Annuals, Buzz is able to locate Bill from the time that he was a junior while he Gene was a senior. Provenza promises to get Bill's juvenile record unsealed for Buzz while he attempts to locate Bill. Finally, using age projecting software on Bill's yearbook photo and Facebook, Buzz is able to locate Bill, but the software is not enough to legally identify him. With Buzz busy helping solve another mystery, Rusty Beck manages to use the photo of the car dealership Bill works at, which is the cover photo for his private Facebook page along with a picture of Bill and his son Gabe at Griffith Observatory, to locate Bill's place of work. Rusty poses as a customer interested in buying a used Mustang and is able to get Bill to give him a water bottle and his business card. Using Bill's fingerprints lifted from the water bottle Rusty obtained, Lieutenant Michael Tao is able to confirm Bill's identity by comparing his fingerprints to those the LAPD have on record from Bill's juvenile record. Buzz and Provenza lead the LAPD to Bill's residence to arrest for the murders using Gene's statement. After seeing pictures of Bill's family and the life he has built for himself, Buzz becomes hesitant, especially after finding Bill playing in the backyard with Gabe. Confused by the police presence, Bill approaches them, only to have Provenza tell him that Gene Hecht identified Bill as the killer of Steven and Jay Watson during an ATM robbery in 1986. Immediately understanding what's going on, Bill's face falls in sadness and he orders Gabe back inside the house. Buzz begins placing Bill under arrest for the murders of his father and uncle and Bill pleads with them not to handcuff him, promising to do whatever they want and asking to be put in a prison near his family. Bill requests the chance to say goodbye to his family, leading Buzz to ask if Bill gave Jay the chance to say goodbye to his own kids before Bill murdered him. Seeing how upset Bill is, Buzz agrees to give him a few minutes while Provenza warns Bill that he doesn't have long as the clock has been ticking on his arrest for thirty years. After Bill tells his family what's happening, he is placed under arrest. Bill being taken into custody, without handcuffs as he asked, is recorded by Rusty and Gus from across the street while Buzz is left distressed by the state Bill's family is left in watching him be led away. Buzz later tells Rusty and Gus that Bill confessed to the murders and is making a deal of life in prison without parole in a prison near his family. However, Buzz is left horrified at the fact that by arresting Bill, he left two more children without their father and feels that Bill's arrest doesn't end it for him. In the final Identity, Rusty shows the footage of Bill's arrest. In open court, Bill and Gene confess to the murders and in exchange, Gene gets another life sentence in the prison he has been serving a life sentence in for the past twenty-eight years. For fully cooperating with the LAPD and the District Attorney's office, Bill is sentenced to life without parole in a prison near his family. Months after Bill's arrest and incarceration, Buzz gets a letter from Bill's son Gabe. In the letter, Gabe tells Buzz that Bill explained to his family what he did and that Bill deeply regrets his actions and is a better person than he was when Bill committed the murders. Gabe asks if Buzz can forgive Bill so that he can come home to his family who are having to move and are running out of money while Bill's wife is crying a lot. Buzz is left with a lot of guilt over Bill's family falling apart following his arrest despite Rusty's attempts to reassure him. As a result of his guilt for tearing apart Bill's family, Buzz gets closer to them over the next several months, helping to take care of Bill's wife and kids in his place despite the warnings from his colleagues that Buzz is making a mistake. Known Victims *Steven Watson (shot twice in the chest and bled to death) *Jay Watson (robbed and shot in the head) Trivia *Gene and Bill's exact reasons for robbing the ATM are never revealed. At one point, its suggested that they had a drug addiction due to the murders happening in the middle of the Crack Epidemic and this caused the robbery, but this is never confirmed. *Bill's exact age at the time of the robbery and murders is never stated. However, he and Gene Hecht are mentioned to have been very young at the time and Buzz identified Bill through his connection to Gene in high school. However, whether or not they were both still in high school at the time is not mentioned. *Gene's efforts to protect Bill Jones' identity suggest that he knows about Bill leaving the criminal lifestyle and wanted to keep him safe from prosecution to protect his normal life. *After learning that Bill works as a used car salesman, Lieutenant Provenza jokes that Bill never really got out of the criminal life after all. *Bill has a juvenile record. However, while Provenza promised to unseal it, what exactly was in the record was never revealed. Appearances ''Major Crimes'' Season 5 # (security footage) # ''Identity'' #The Long Shadow, Part 3 (security footage) #The Long Shadow, Part 13 (video footage) Category:Characters Category:Major Crimes Category:MC Season 5 Category:Armed Robbers Category:Murderers